Here is Bruce Bartlett´s new book, here is an overview. Incendiary, etc. The positive suggestion is that the Republicans should, and will need to, start courting black voters, and that greater electoral competition in this manner will help the courted parties. The main theoretical question is when the statute of limitations runs out for holding the background of a party against that party. I don’t have a clear view on that question, although for individual candidates I think that the time horizon should be quite long.
Addendum: Here is a Matt-Bruce exchange. Perhaps I posted this link without enough explanation. What I find so interesting is why Bartlett remains a Republican, or from the synopsis seems to. After all, he has come close to endorsing Hillary. Whether you like that or not, it is a big step for someone from his market-oriented background. Does he stay a Republican because he thinks Republicans are better on race issues? I haven’t read the book, but I thought there were many interesting issues going on in this new work of his. I am sorry to have given rise to an exchange with nasty comments. They’ve been deleted. I might add I believe there is plenty of racism all around; the interesting positive question is why it takes one form (more open) in Republican circles and another very different form in Democratic circles. Wage and other data show that discrimination is not especially concentrated in Republican areas, I hope to post more on that topic soon.
if a single mention of states’ rights 27 years ago is sufficient to damn the Republican Party for racism ever afterwards,
What nonsense. Whatever Bartlett thinks about those accusations, they are based on vastly more evidence than Reagan’s speech. And the quotes from Democrats, some of them pretty ancient, do nothing do disprove Krugman’s assertions about the party-wide strategy of the Republicans over the last 40 years.
Tyler, Why would you want to link to disreputable nonsequitors like this? Leave it to the loony pages where it belongs.
I think there were many german-american communities that didn’t vote democratic because of Wilson’s entry into WW1 against the Germans. This animus lasted until they died.
There is no form of “reaching out” to black voters that will work for the Republicans if it doesn’t also involve cash payments. Black voters vote Democrat because they get paid to vote Democrat. All the rest is nonsense.
Anthony:
“the Republican Party’s distaste for making specific interest-group appeals”
Seriously?
That op-ed is beneath the level I would have expected to see here.
Actually it’s undoubtedly the dumbest thing I’ll read this week.
Sounds like he’s saying up until Lyndon Johnson the Democrats pandered to Southern racism and now Republicans do, which is Krugman’s point.
The republicans are soft on crime (if the felons are white). Step up
Scooter,Caspar and Elliot Abrams.
Centuries?
Gore Senior voted against Civil rights Acts in 1963.
Who nominated Clarence Thomas? and who lyn
ched him?
Who nominated Powell and Condoleza Rice?
and who nominated more afroemerican to the bench?Bush ,and the democtrats stalled the game TWO YEARS
Not in the xix century by the way
The most pro-black policy is to stop illegal immigration and drastically reduce legal immigration of non-college educated foreigners.
The second most pro-black policy is to slow down outsourcing of manufacturing to China and others.
Both policies are highly beneficial to lower and middle classes and, dare I say it, highly beneficial to the country at large.
Negatively affected groups like government employees and college professors should be provided funds for retraining.
Juan:
I love that you recite a list of nominated African-Americans as proof your party isn’t anti black. Name me a singly elected black Republican.
As of 2006, there were 23 elected black Republicans at all levels of government — local, state, and federal. There are zero black Republicans elected at a national level. There are fewer elected black republicans in this country than there are from the Green Party. There are fewer black people at the Republican Party’s highest levels than there are in a single inner city classroom. But they nominated Clarence Thomas, so they must be ok? They nominated and humiliated Colin Powell, so they are pro black? Don’t make me laugh.
“You may now proceed to call me a racist. . .”
You’re a racist. The label is true, and your assertions are, well–merely assertions. One may be “economically illiterate” to believe that the government can cut taxes yet continue to function as it has in the past. Let’s see: Bush and a Republican (read “conservative)congress cut taxes. Bush and a Republican congress continued spending and the deficit grew.
I keep my household budget. I learned early on, without studying great economic theorists, that if I didn’t have enough money coming in to cover what was going out I would go into debt, and the debt would continue to grow until I either increased my income or changed my spending habits. That understanding makes me neither “economically ignorant” nor “emotionally irrational” nor a Democrat.
John, your thought processes are somewhat aberrant. I’m not saying they’re “liberal” or “conservative”, but they certainly are not unlike the thought processes of a racist.
The belief that the republicans can do anything to appeal to blacks if laughably stupid. Being a Democrats is just part of black culture now since most blacks have never for a Republican in their entire lives.
When you look at changing demographics in the U.S., the Republicans are now in a position from which there is no recovery. The Republicans are a minority party that will lose more votes than they gain with any demographic appeals.
If you want to see the future of politics in the U.S. just look at California . The Republicans are a minority party there that will just keep getting smaller and will so be totaly irrelevant to politics.
Songar and Adam -
Republican appeals to interest groups are generally much more set in terms of overall national interest, rather than in terms of direct appeals to specific groups.
Republican sound bites:
“Lower taxes to help the economy/create jobs”
“Tough on crime”
“Strong foreign policy”
“Fix welfare to end dependency”
“Stop illegal immigration”
“Protect the children”
Many of these are quite possibly aimed at specific interest groups, but the general message is that these policies will be good for all Americans, except possibly government employees and parasites.
Democrat sound bites:
“Tax the rich”
“Protect defendants’ rights”
“Help the poor”
“Enforce civil rights/affirmative action”
“We can’t deport 12 million people”
Most of those are far more nakedly appeals to specific groups in the Democrat coalition, and it’s not common for Democrat candidates to make a case that these are not just matters of “fairness” to those groups, but that they benefit all Americans.
Assigning traits to an entire race is illogical, and does in fact give others reason to distrust your assertions. Is any given black man more likely to be a criminal, murder, rapist, thug or addict than a white man? Unfortunately, yes, he is. But it does not follow from this that any individual white man is somehow more innocent than an individual black man, or that “blacks” in general need to be held accountable for the actions of black criminals, murderers, rapists, thugs or addicts (the later of which isn’t even a crime).
Criminals need to be held accountable for their actions; period, end-of-story. Race (and other groupings) can be a useful indicator of the likelihood of certain traits, but thats about it. In fact, race is only used because its obvious. If we had our annual income stamped on our foreheads, that would probably be a more useful means of profiling than race.
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